Time for a little change up on Bear Chick's Journey. I've been a bit busy lately and neglectful of my blog, so I decided to shake it up, with some new or enhanced daily themes. Here's my new schedule:
Encouraging Words Monday
Life on Etsy Tuesday-Not just favorite shops, but observations about Etsy, business and life
Wordless Wednesday
8 Things Thursday
Bear Chick Friday-Updates on what I'm doing, creating and thinking about my business
Entertainment Saturday-Not just books, but movies, events, whatever has my attention that week
Wishful Thinking Sunday
So, here’s my first Life on Etsy entry.
Over the weekend, I created my first Treasury. A treasury is what you see on the front page of Etsy, 12 items, usually with a theme of some sort. Etsy folks curate these Treasuries, picking items they like from all there is to offer on Etsy. I had never done one before since there used to be a limit to how many Treasuries could exist at one time and I was never interested in the competition to snag one. But a new Treasury is now available without limits, so I thought I'd give it a try. I love bats, so that was my first choice of theme.
Click above to see the Treasury-I can't get it to print screen--grrrr!
Here's what I learned:
I started out by using "bats" as a search and came up with over 100 pages of bat related goods. By looking through these items, it was interesting to see the quality of the items (or lack of) and especially, the quality of the photographs. And I noticed that, even when I really liked something, if the picture was blurry or dark, I wouldn't pick it for my Treasury. It really made me think about my own photographs, both the quality of them and the way I use them.
Quality--I admit to sometimes getting frustrated and/or lazy with my jewelry photos and sometimes throw some on Etsy that I'm not too proud of. That won't be happening again!
Usage--This one is a little trickier. You get up to 5 photos for your listing but the first photo is your one chance to snag a buyers attention, because that‘s the one buyers see as Recently Listed Items and in searches. Do you use the artsy angle that piques interest or the full shot that shows the entire item? In the case of the Treasury I did, I picked items by the fact that I could see most of the item in the main photo. And I notice that a lot of the Treasuries are done that way, with either full photos or close ups of the main or most interesting part of an item.
Things to think about for my next photo session, sometime after my next two shows over the next two weekends. Many times, the Treasuries are picked by Etsy admin for the Front Page. And being on the Front Page gets lots of views and, hopefully, sales. So photographic skills are nothing to be taken lightly!
Do What You Love!
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